Forza Vs. GT4

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We pit the ultimate racing sims in an all-out, head-to-head racing championship. Which takes the crown?

By Douglass C. Perry and Ed Lewis

In the history of videogames, several distinct racers have made their indelible mark on the genre. From Pole Position, Virtua Racing, and Daytona USA in the early days, to the more sophisticated R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, the intensive Colin McRae Rally series and the spectacular Burnout series, gamers who love to drive cars have indeed driven some brilliant racing games. When Gran Turismo landed like a stealth jet on PlayStation in summer 1998, the world of racing games as we knew it changed more drastically than ever before.

Developer Polyphony Digital created a drop-dead beautiful game that, in many respects, was untouchable in graphic intensity, realism, and car accuracy. Polyphony's Kazunori Yamauchi envisioned and then delivered a game that unfolded, rewarded, and nibbled at your car loving ways differently. It was as close to a car RPG as you could get, tugging at your collector sensibility, not to mention that growing feeling of wanting to complete it all. And how many cars did those games have? GT2 had more than 500 cars, a number that previously was unheard of. Finally, GT gave racing simulations a whole different meaning. Finally, it was OK to be a racing simulation, because after all, when millions upon millions of Gran Turismos sell year after year, you could call it whatever you want. Go sim racing!

What's more, to date few game developers have come close to matching GT's full package of realism, beauty, and most importantly, its unbeatable depth and polish. Still, in 2004, the year Gran Turismo 4 was supposed to arrive, Microsoft announced its GT-inspired racing simulation, Forza Motorsport. The developers from the Microsoft Studios project clearly view GT as a masterpiece and revere its beauty, polish and design. But, make no doubt about it, Forza was designed to take on GT in every way. In its debut at E3 2004, Forza wowed a lot of racing fans with its realism, sense of speed, and robust feature set. And the press (yours truly included) was eager to pit the two against one another. But when you sit back with your friends and think about games for a while, one natural question always arises -- who'd win in a fight, Gran Turismo 4 or Forza Motorsport?

The Original Vs. the Newcomer We realize that in this heavyweight competition neither Gran Turismo 4 nor Forza Motorsport actually are available in the North American market. The IGN PS2 guys have a final copy of the Japanese version, and we Xbox guys have a very early preview build of Forza. So, we're aware of the inadequacies inherent in such a competition. The final word on both games will be final when we are holding box copies of each in our sweaty little hands.

However, we're embarking on an in-depth comparison of each game based on things we can fairly compare. What are the feature sets like? Do they compare visually so far? Which has more cars, more tracks, more custom stuff? Which are you more likely to buy? This feature focuses on the best and worst qualities of each thus far, helping to distinguish the potential strengths and weaknesses of each racing sim, so that you have a clearer, more educated idea of what's coming your way.

Both Ed and I realize that Polyphony's game has a few advantages over Forza. The first and foremost being that Polyphony has had far more time -- like six years and three games -- to perfect its racing gem. On the other hand, Microsoft Game Studios has had many years to study the three previous GTs, which is more than enough adequate time to research and improve upon Polyphony's design. Let's go over some quick stats to compare the two racers.